1. Field of the Invention
The invention disclosed and claimed herein generally pertains to a method for providing assistance in decision making in a configurable managed environment or system, that includes a configuration management database (CMDB) and configuration items (CI). More particularly, the invention pertains to a method of the above type for providing assistance in determining whether or not to make a change in the system that would affect one or more of the CIs. Even more particularly, the invention pertains to a method of the above type for computing a confidence level representing the probability that information provided by the CMDB is accurate. The Change Manager also gets the information on the impact of the proposed change.
2. Description of the Related Art
Configuration management is a critical process responsible for identifying, controlling and tracking all versions of hardware, software, documentation, and other inanimate components of a configurable managed environment, such as an Information Technology organization. The goal of configuration management is to ensure that only authorized components, referred to as configuration items (CIs), are used in the configurable managed environment, and that all changes to CIs are recorded and tracked throughout the life cycle of the component. The configuration management process includes performing tasks such as identifying CIs and their relationships, and adding them to the CMDB. The CMDB is a database that contains all relevant details for each CI, such as relationships between CIs, state or status, and historical information. Some examples of CIs are Computer System, Application Server etc. The data and relationships in the CMDB are used by a system manager, referred to as a Change Manager, for making changes in the configurable managed environment or system, wherein the changes generally will affect one or more of the configuration items. A definition of the Change Manager, provided by the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL), is set forth hereinafter.
The CMDB nominally contains the latest information of the above type for all CIs, such as the states and relationships thereof. Information about respective CIs is referred to herein as configuration item data (CID). In a configurable managed environment, as events occur that change the states or relationships of respective CIs, the CMDB must be synchronized accordingly. That is, the CMDB must be updated, so that the data contained therein will represent the new CID, that is, new realities of the CIs. However, in a configurable managed environment of the above type, multiple point products are commonly present that create and change relationships among the CIs. Such point products are described hereinafter in further detail, and may, for example, comprise devices such as the Tivoli Configuration Manager (TCM), a product of International Business Machines Corporation. The multiple point products are also commonly used to report changed conditions of the CIs to the CMDB.
Because the CMDB receives CI change data from different point products, it can happen that data received from the different point products, in regard to the same CIs, will be in conflict. Moreover, delays of varying lengths may occur between actual changes of CI conditions, and the reporting of such changed conditions to the CMDB. As a result, a typical CMDB that is being populated with data from multiple point product sources cannot be kept in synchronization with the actual real world condition of all CIs, since it is virtually impossible to keep CID synchronization up to date.
In a configurable managed environment or system, Change Managers make systems management decisions based on the state and relationships of the CIs, as shown by information in the CMDB. Some changes to the environment are trivial, while other changes can have serious consequences. For example, a change such as disabling a monitoring service on a hardware CI will usually be of low impact, while deleting a software component from a server for a change management operation can have serious consequences. However, as discussed above, CMDB information available to the Change Manager is likely to contain inaccuracies, even though such information is to be used as the basis for making changes. Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide the Change Manager with a tool that could serve as an aid in determining whether or not to make certain changes that affect CIs. The tool would take into account both the possibility of inaccurate CMDB information, and the comparative impact of the proposed change and provide information on the probability of a given change being successful or a failure.